Das Buch Wer mitmacht, hat Recht!

Ever felt like complaining about an election?

Soon you won’t even be able to!
Right here, in good old Germany.

Hell yeah!
Let’s get rid¹ of this nasty law that allows hearing of complaints from the commission overlooking elections.
Why?
“Because it wasn’t really used in the past anyways.”

BEST.
REASON.
EVER.

Let’s get rid of German democracy next.
Guess what:
It hasn’t been used a lot lately!

¹ Deutscher Bundestag: Aenderung Wahlpruefungsgesetz [16/7463]

Imagine:
You and your first love, both of you age 17, enjoy a movie at the theater together, well, you also feel up on your girlfriend, maybe even touch hear breasts.

• Nothing special?
• Boring?
• Reality is far more ‘sexy’ than that?

Answered any of these with a yes? Beware!
German legislators did all the moral math for you³.
From now on it’ll be SIMPLE.
This will be a felony and you will be sentenced to spend some quality time in prison.

Read on to get all the details, including a list of every-day stuff that will get you prison time.

Germany’s democracy just fell victimg to a classic lemming maneuver.
A formal request (read: “we sued them”) to make the testing protocols (which were the basis of approval for the Nedap voting machines) public was just denied by a German court.
Reasons? “Intellectual Property”.

And that’s even tho they are kown and proven to be as insecure as you can possibly imagine.
That reads “insecure” as in: “let’s accumulate security holes and sell them in an ugly gray box”.
Here’s a page of a Dutch activist group that also proved the blatant insecurities of the Nedap system.

Read the rest of the article after the jump!

If you understand German, you have to watch/listen to the following video.
Stubborn old people being pro online-surveillance...
because...
They've got "nothing to hide".

Hanno writes on his blog about the recent shock-and-awe approach of Germany’s equivalent to the FBI, the BKA , to push ridiculous new empowerments.

The BKA invited members of the Innenausschuss (German Wikipedia entry) a permanent committee of the German government commissioned to handle everything related to politics of the interior. Their fields of work include (besides others):

Now, not only is possession of Hacker-Tools illegal in Germany, no, now you’re getting in big, big trouble if you’re a social person, sharing your wireless internet connection.

In Germany you’re responsible for…

• ... what people post on your forum or blog
• ... the content of external websites you link to (even tho they are not your websites)
• ... every crime committed using your free wifi hotspot

That’s what a certain law says, that was already used SEVERAL times to SUCCESSFULLY convict people.

The law in question defines the term “interferer accountability” .
Meaning: If THEY think you’re offering something, knowingly, willingly, so others can misuse it.. YOU are responsible!
You can’t even claim “you didn’t know”. You’re supposed to read up on whatever possibilities to break a law you might be offering.

If you’re running a free, open, wireless hotspot in Germany and someone (mis)uses your internet connection for, say, piracy, you’re responsible.
At least that’s what the court of appeal in Frankfurt/Main ruled just a few days ago.

This ruling had me take down two Fon social wireless access points here in the house.
They [Fon] allowed unauthenticated users to get a couple of free minutes on any Fon access point without authentication. This was part of a promotional stunt but put every Fonero in Germany at risk to get sued for what those people did!

No more free wireless from my place!
Blame the German law, and the court in Frankfurt!

Source: Law-Blog: OLG Frankfurt zu unverschlüsseltem WLAN und Störerhaftung

German news website WELT ONLINE reports:

The Minster of Education and Cultural Affairs of German federal state Hessen, Karin Wolff (CDU) (German Wikipedia entry), wants to see Genesis being taught in biology class.

Believe and science; Hand in hand?

Karin Wolff repeatedly demanded that Intelligent Design be taught since Hessen’s school law allows for “interdisciplinary teaching.”
“Pupils have to be given the chance to compare scientific and theological explanations of the world,” says Wollf. “Science explains how the world came to be while theology is about interpretation and questions of meaning.”
She claims that biology lessons should also point out that there are limits to human knowledge.

German news website heise online reports:

Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) wants to see a timely end of the current discussion on the proposed tough anti-terror laws proposed by Minister of the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU).

The key points of the new law are

• Online search and seize of computers using the so-called “Federal Trojan Horse”
• Use of information gained from autobahn toll collecting for law enforcement
• Fingerprints as part of biometric passports and national ID cards
• Additional storage of biometric data at the local registration office (“Meldeamt”, where citizens have to be registred)
• Even more possibilities for computer-aided search / investigation

German magazine Focus Online reports how several leading figures of the CDU (Christian Democratic Union), one of the two biggest parliamentary groups of the current government, endorse Schäuble’s plans for stricter, more fascist, anti-terror legislation.

Following in the footsteps of Schäuble

Chief Minister Roland Koch (CDU) (Official homepage) of Hessen is being quoted saying that “Germany can’t be allowed to be not as good as other countries when it comes to investigating terrorist suspects.”
Furthermore, “The Big Coalition (CDU/SPD) has to give the idea some serious thought.”

If needed the constitution has to be enhanced to allow us to fight terrorism better.

Günther Oettinger (CDU) (Official homepage), Chief Minister of Baden-Württemberg, is said to claim “Schäuble’s advances are totally OK. If needed the constitution has to be enhanced to allow us to fight terrorism better. SPD Chief Kurt Beck (Official homepage) should be more open for compromises regarding this issue.”

German newspaper WELT ONLINE reports (German language source) on the latest development of German Minister of the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble.

He’s raising the question whether Germany is able to defend itself against the growing terrorist threat using the current tools available to law enforcement. He’s especially worried about “sympathizers of the criminal networks” and “jeopardizers” (He keeps making up fuzzy fake words like that in German, too.)

He’s thinking about implementing similar anti-terror laws as the United States.
For instance he wants to establish the punishable act of “conspiracy” in the same way.
Or maybe one could treat those “jeopardizers” like enemy combatants” (He used the lean-word “Kombatanten” instead of “Kämpfer” (combatants) in his German statement, which is not in general use in Germany and thus sounds like “nothing” to the broad public.)
As if this wouldn’t be enough already, he also suggest to deny “extremists” (no clear definition of the term) the use of mobile phones and internet to communicate. (I’m wondering what ridiculous new laws, taking away our civil liberties, he would have to get passed to make this possible.)